Community Schools Resources

Community Schools are focused on providing wrap-around services to students through school-community partnerships, and may include some services that may or may not be provided by traditional afterschool programs. The following resources are potentially helpful for planning and implementing Community Schools that include these valuable services.

Resources on Wrap-Around Services

Our guidebook on school-community partnerships includes a process for creating an effective school-community partnership and will have applicable resources for planning a community schools model as well as expanded learning time. Moreover, most community schools incorporate additional learning time in addition to other services and partnerships, so the time components will be relevant to many applications.

The NYS Department of Labor’s CareerZone system can help bridge youth’s academics and afterschool activities to postsecondary education and career opportunities. Network for Youth Success partnered with the NYS Department of Labor to host a webinar on this tool recently, and a recording of the webinar can be accessed through the following steps:

Using Google Chrome, go to https://dews.webex.com

From the left side of the menu, select “Recorded Sessions”

Scroll to the webinar titled “CareerZone Training for NYSAN” and select the title

Click the “View” button and enter “career” in the Recording Password field, then select the OK button and the webinar will begin.

The heart of the community schools model is a multi-service approach to meet the many needs of youth, families, and the community through the school. The Cradle to Career Alliance has expertise in coordinating services and systems-building across multiple systems in a neighborhood or community and is a point of connection for existing New York collective impact projects as well as national resources.

The Literacy Zone is a reform initiative to close the achievement gap in urban and rural communities of concentrated poverty and high concentrations of families and individuals with limited literacy or English language proficiency. Literacy Zones provide a systemic approach to meeting the literacy needs of these communities, from birth through adult. Find the most recent Literacy Zone grantees here. They may be potential partners around literacy and family engagement.